Once More Around, My Friend
by Unikorn
Summary: Post AWE. Jack returns to the Faithful Bryde and becomes aware of decisions that he must make in his life. Rating has gone up, though it shouldn't need to go higher in later. Please review. Let me know if it's worth reading.
1. The Reunion

A/N I don't really know if this one will be something anyone will want to read. It's kind of Mary Sue-ish, but it's something in response to what I heard someone say or something someone wrote. Can't remember which.

Disclaimer: Nope… none of the characters mine, even the barmaid. Story is built on the ones Disney sanctioned. Other than that…

Once More Around, My Friend

Chapter 1: Reunion

The Faithful Bryde was full again with rowdy sailors and pirates, all having landed at the evening's high tide, wishing to fuel their bellies and deaden their senses by emptying their coinpurses of their newly acquired pay. She waded through the sea of unwashed bodies, all eager to grasp at the tankards that were sloshing on the tray she held over their heads.

"Get yer refills at the bar, lads!" she bellowed to the greedy men. "These are bought and paid fer by gentlemen far better than the likes o' ye!" For her bulk, her dance between the tables was well practiced and graceful as she wended her way towards the more shadowy recesses of the tavern with her cargo.

"All the more reason to pillage ye of it," answered a gruff voice near her as, once again, she smacked a dirty hand away from her ample waist. She glared at the offending scallywag, but pressed on towards her goal.

Three figures sat around the table in the back, two with large hats still perched on their heads, with a much more subdued hatless one in between. The two captains stared stonily at each other, waiting for the other to back down. The one in the middle raked a hand nervously through his mutton chops, eyes skittering about as he watched for her to return to the table. As he noticed her approach, they lit up in anticipation. His hands became talons as he swooped in on his tankard as a bird of prey on its target.

"Thank ye kindly, lass. Ye've saved me life," he declared dramatically as he tilted his head back to quaff his ale. The younger captain rolled his eyes towards his current first mate briefly before returning his gaze to that of his former one. The older scarred face smirked as if in triumph, but she was unclear as to what he had gained in the interchange. The younger, and clearly more handsome, albeit grimy one, had not appeared as if he had lost anything. She shook her head and snorted at the men.

"All of ye act like ye were still challengin' each other atop a mound o' dirt with wooden swords," she barked at the two pirates as they eyed each other. She slammed the remaining two tankards down in front of the contenders, soaking the hands of the younger one who finally turned and acknowledged her presence with an annoyed glare. He brusquely wiped off the frothy drink off as the other sneered at her.

"Firstly, the object o' contention is far more than a mere mound o' dirt, missy," he drawled in his thick Irish brogue. "Secondly, it could prove a mite dangerous for ye to stick yer nose into business which does not concern ye." His green eyes bored pointedly into her own, as he reached to tip back his ale.

"And I'll have ye remember that 'tis my tavern ye be frequentin', so if ye don't mind, that'll be enough of yer threats." She cocked her own arms akimbo to her sides, and gestured briefly back at a couple of burly gents that were bellied up to the bar, nursing drinks that hadn't been refilled for an hour or two. At her movement one man looked up from his drink and stepped away from the bar, apparently waiting for further orders.

The younger pirate, although not young by any means, suddenly cocked his head back in a laugh, his kohl rimmed eyes widened in mirth. "Seems as if ye've found yer own crew to command, Bell," he grinned. She smiled back at her childhood friend.

"Aye, Jack, that I have." She waved the bouncer back to the bar and seated herself next to the strange little giant she had known for years. She glanced at him, carefully hiding the concern she felt from showing on her face. He had known that she had taken over ownership from her deceased uncle who had inherited the tavern from her father. It seemed that although he was still the man she knew from before his battle with Davy Jones's terrible beastie, he had forgotten some things, some things that he would not have normally considered unimportant. And there was little that Jack had considered unimportant. She raised her tankard to clunk against his extended one, and grinned back at his devilish expression.

"I miss this town," he said softly as he glanced around, drinking in the cacophony of noise and scents with his ale.

"And you say the same thing about the sea as soon as you start getting your land legs," she reminded him. She knew the sea and his ship, The Black Pearl, were the two things that pleased him, the two women that worked in tandem with each other to fill his heart leaving no room for any other. Or at least they used to. Rumor had it that another, much younger female had captured his eye, his desires. She saw no sign of any such female, but from what she understood, the damsel in question had a predilection for wearing men's clothing. Many of the young boys in the room could have been her in disguise as far as she knew. She was not in the habit of testing each one to find out if they were boys or not; although with the attention she seemed to be getting lately from the younger crowd, she was fairly certain that there would not be much argument if she had started doing so.

"So, the two of ye are still contestin' ownership of the 'Pearl," she reasoned. Jack's jaw tightened with the mention of his beloved ship. His former first mate, Barbossa, glared at the barmaid in disgust. Although he was still one for tasting all the pleasures he could out of life, after ten years of walking about in a living death, he found nosy rotund women an anathema, especially those who had befriended a prissy do-gooder of a pirate like Jack. She shook back her thick graying hair, and sneered back at the crusty coot. Despite his revulsion with her, she still admired him for his stamina. He had certainly gone through much, but her philosophy was that if one lives like a pirate, one must die, and apparently, in this case, be resurrected, as a pirate. She never expected that he would be anything but, regardless what Jack had told her about Barbossa. He may have been instrumental in the saving of said friend, but he still had ulterior motives, as any pirate does.

"Once again, I be remindin' ye to mind to yer own affairs," he snarled, glaring at her bouncers openly, obviously not worried about her earlier promise. "There be plenty of dark and hidden corners in this town where ye can be findin' misfortune waitin' for ye." With that, he scraped his chair back as he rose, and strode to the door, apparently either heading back to the ship, or to a more welcoming establishment.

"Not that that threat is something that I've never heard afore," she shot at his back as he left.

"Oh, now that made sense," she heard mumbled beside her. She shot Jack a dark look, and noticed his quiet signal to Gibbs to follow the formerly dead pirate captain. The first mate's brow furrowed in the beginnings of a pout, and Jack gestured more frantically to get him moving. Gibbs reluctantly got up, polished off the rest of his tankard, and scurried out the door muttering to himself about some bad omen or sign of bad luck, probably dealing with following the walking dead. She couldn't believe how much he could come up with when it came to legends and myths and the curses bestowed on those who broke the unwritten codes of the sea.

Jack's fingernails clinked in random cadence on his tankard, while the barmaid sat quietly waiting for an explanation. Deciding that she was going to get none from him at the moment, she stood, hips swaying as she pushed the chair in to avoid from having some drunken patron attack it for getting in his way. Jack's dark gaze watched her idly as she set about clearing the table of the empty drinking vessels and mopping up the spills with the rag she kept tucked in the strings of her apron. She tugged on a bangle in his hair as she passed by him, recognizing it as one fashioned from a coin he had picked up on one of their earlier journeys during their adolescent years. They both grinned at each other, recalling the adventure.

"I don't only miss the town, luv," he confessed as he grabbed her about her waist and gently perched her on his lap. She grimaced, hoping that the stool would hold both of them. He caught the look and chucked her under the chin, letting her know what he thought of her self-doubt. "Enough of that, darlin'. Have a little faith in ol' Jack." She sighed and gave him a slight squeeze before lifting herself up and starting to rub the table down vigorously. He watched for a few seconds before laying his palm down on the back of her hand and gazing up at her.

"I believe it's time we had a little talk" he said softly.


	2. The Hero

A/N Kudos to those of you who recognize my "OC". I'm trying to make her the same person but who's been through her own kind of Hell and back.

Chapter 2:

She felt his eyes lingering on her as she continued to serve the thirsty crowd for the rest of the evening. On nights like this, when the tavern was bursting at the seams, she was often expected to share her room with a customer, sometimes two. She was grateful he had procured her "services" early so she would not have had to take on some codger who would have a little more trouble in completing the act. As she grew older and less comely, she was often left with the less than savory types to entertain, until recently that is. Many times she would suddenly find a young man, still a little green when it came to the seductive arts, who would find her just the type he wanted. She had led a few young boys into manhood, but her favorites were the types who had had a little experience. They tended to want to experiment which spiced things up in her rather mindless existence.

She was not a whore, nor one of those that Jack preferred, the strumpets, ladies of the night. They lived and worked in their brothels that were scattered throughout Tortuga. She was a barmaid, an additional service for those who needed a room for a night. Even as the owner of the bar, she felt it necessary to keep providing this service, at least until her looks turned even the older men away. She was still capable of sharing a bawdy joke or spinning a yarn, even of giving some unsuspecting sailor a jolt of excitement, but she also had realized that she needed to hire on a couple of young girls to help her try to keep up with the rowdy patrons. She herself had been in the same position when she first met Jack, as he tried to steal a rather large sailor's bag from him. She smiled at the memory, as it was the first of many adventures she had shared with him, trying to run away from what she eventually wound up being in the end.

As the crowd thinned in the early morning hours, she found more and more time to return to Jack's table. She let him grab her and hold tight at times, as if his life depended on it. As he released her, she would pull back, with a questioning look in her blue eyes, at which he would shake his head and merely plant another kiss either on a cheek or lightly on her lips. At one point she noticed that the open sore she had first spotted on his jaw some time ago had healed, leaving a noticeable scar. Knowing where such sores came from, she was surprised, and more than a little hopeful that such spots had disappeared elsewhere. Never had she heard of anyone healing from such a malady, but it seemed that Jack had … as per his usual luck … managed it. She stroked his beard in that spot, what little of it there was, and caught his leer. He knew what was going through her mind, and he was primed.

"Darlin', it's getting late," he reminded her.

"Do ye have to leave tomorrow mornin?'" She dreaded his answer. Thankfully she was surprised. He shook his head and made as if to stand, carefully favoring what appeared to be a leg that had gone to sleep. She chuckled at his plight. She offered him her shoulder as he moved gingerly from behind the table where he had been berthed the whole evening, and wondered if she was going to have to accompany him to the privy. He had been drinking all night, and before he followed her upstairs, he patted her behind, and promised to follow her shortly.

As she arrived to the door of her tiny room, she felt herself shoved into the wall by a walking mound of dirty rags, with hands reaching and groping frantically. As the arms that were attached to the hands entwined themselves around her, a slurring, slobbery voice assaulted her ears.

"Give over luv. I'll pay ye handsomely for a bit of th' slap and tickle, I will," promised the wretch. She shoved him away, only to have the octopus like arms suck her back into his putrid embrace. She struggled to free herself, but to no avail. The man's slimy lips trailed a kiss down the side of her neck, putting her in mind of the slugs that she used to salt when she was a lass. She shuddered, revolted, but her response urged him on further, his advances becoming even more desperate.

"Bugger off, Charlie. I wouldn't have ye if ye paid a king's ransom fer me services," she said loudly. She knew the other rooms on the floor were occupied so she hoped someone could hear her. "Ye've never paid me nor anyone here fer their services all yer life, so don't start makin' promises ye can't keep." She grunted as she continued to fight off the persistent suitor.

Abruptly, the hands that were clutched around her were dragged away, leaving scratch marks in their wake from his attempt to claw at her bosom. The scrawny body slammed with a crack into the opposite door from her room, causing an irate shout to issue from the resident on the other side. She turned to see Jack grimacing menacingly into the attacker's face, eyes wild, teeth glinting in the little bit of lantern light in the hallway.

"The lady said to leave her be, Charlie," he growled, slamming the raggedy man again into the door for good measure. With that, the door swung open and a sleep bedraggled sailor who was holding up his breeches appeared looming in the doorway. Jack let Charlie drop from his grip and grinned at the awakened sailor. The would-be attacker slumped against the occupant's legs, clutching them and squawking loudly, as if he had been victimized by the angry pirate.

"My apologies, mate," he offered to the customer, as he bent to retrieve the panicky beggar. "Just cleaning up some rubbish. Won't be moment, and ye can go back to beddy-bye."

All of a sudden, footsteps could be heard pounding up the stairs. The two henchmen from the bar came storming around the corner. One stopped there and kept an eye on the stairs while the other came forward to investigate the ruckus. He approached Jack, who, upon seeing the size and girth of the henchmen, promptly dropped the terrified bundle of rags. His eyes and grin widened as he backed away nervously from the situation, holding up his hands in defense.

"No worries there, mate. I'll let ye handle this from hereon in," he offered to the towering brute. The thug still advanced on Jack, as he was the only one seemingly bullying anyone else.

"All right, that's enough," spoke up the true victim of the attack who had been all but ignored within the last few moments. She shouldered past the bouncer and grabbed Jack's hand. She turned towards her employees and gestured towards the still whimpering beggar. "Just get rid of him and don't let him back in th' tavern. Pitch him out th' window if ye want, but just remember to open it first. The last one cost me dear." She shoved Jack towards the room, where he went willingly, but not without casting another cheeky grin towards the henchman. The thug watched him, somewhat bewildered at his employer's apparent choice in bedmate.

"Oh, and Horace?" she continued. "Ye can go home after cleanin' up here, but tell Taggart to stay on watch until sunrise. I'll be turnin' in now, so he's not to be lettin' anyone be disturbin' me." She turned to follow Jack into the room.

"Horace?" questioned Jack loudly enough for the bouncer to hear. An obvious snicker reached him as he picked up the beggar, just before the door clicked shut.

"Shut _up_, Jack," came the tavern owner's voice as the snicker turned into peals of laughter.

A/N I know, I know... I hate beggars too, but I've been reduced to doing so for reviews. I'm willing and mature enough to handle constructive criticism, even flames, so fire away. At least let me know if this is worth my time to continue.


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